BaD #17: So many ideas, so few days/time

I thought I’d take a moment out of watching Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day to type out a quick BaD blog. So far I’ve lasted longer than I thought this year in BaD despite my local area internet dying out on my now and again. At best though it has forced me to dual watch the above movies with Ghostbusters on Netflix and Groundhog Day I own on DVD.

One of the things I’ve really come to enjoy about BaD is from reading other blogger’s BaDs as well as reading the comments to BaD’s created. I’m right now trying my best to comment to all the BaD I’ve read as well as responding to BaD comments. But with Pixlbit going 300+ in my message box and trying to keep up on IGN/1up.com sites, it looks like I won’t be done with BaD reading/comment till much after the end of this year’s BaD. To those I’ve yet to read/comment/answer to fear not, I plan to get to them. Out of all of this I have a new found appreciated for Pixlbit’s comments format unlike 1up.com’s (with reloading pages) to IGN itself. (Where I have a hard time trying to navigate disqus along with being able to find other blogs from people I follow.)

But what I also like about BaD is that you’ll find yourself getting ideas for blogs either from other bloggers BaD’s or their comments themselves. Because of that I have a tleast three ideas for blogs but I’m not sure I’ll be able to do them justice if I try to squeeze them in as a BaD at the moment. Of the three they are heady subjects that range from drug use, evolution and my current hatred for Connecticitia/New England/The East Coast.

A simple type out blog won’t do them justice. But I don’t see myself touching these subjects after BaD given how I usually reserve my gaming website blogs to games in general. I’m sure there is a way to tie in those three core blog ideas to gaming (in fact I do have some ideas) but timing is lacking given my circumstances. Even now I need to get to bed so I can get up at 5:10 am tomorrow.

So instead here is another picture of my “epic” beard. I guess you could say it has come along quite nicely since the first of the month. I was able to get the flash working on my tablet PC (Not sure why my camera app is giving me so much trouble) so you can see how bushy and thick has become, more so around my neck area. I think I’ll do a weekend blog with just postings of my face from February 1st. At that point it would be time to say goodbye to it.

Wise “BaD” Message of the Day: Not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin....

BaD #16: So much for Ghostbusters III

I happen to be listening to news radio at work today when I heard the shocking news that actor/writer/director Harold Ramis passed away today. To some he might be known as the writer-director behind such classic comedies as Caddyshack, National Lampoon's Vacation, Groundhog Day, and Analyze This, along with being one of the screenwriters behind another comedy classic National Lampoon's Animal House.

But for me he will always be known as Egon Spengler from Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II.

For me Harold Ramis was someone you really didn’t think about much when it came to comedy as a whole. I never dawned on me that he had a hand or was influential in all of the works that he was involved in. From movies like “Meatballs” to even directing episodes of TV shows like “The Office”, Harold Ramis was there either hidden in plain sight or out there as an actor.

I guess I took Harold Ramis for granted myself. I didn’t even think about most of the comedy I’ve been exposed to, never considering he had a hand in it. Instead I just remember him as the man that figured how to control the animated Statue of Liberty in Ghostbusters II with a tweaked out NES Advantage Controller.

I need to make up for lost time and show some respect to Harold Ramis today and perhaps later on in the week. I need to see if Ghostbusters is still on Netflix. Until then I’ll instead play Ghostbusters: The Video Game on the PS3. Not only is it considered one of the very few GOOD Ghostbusters games out there, but it’ll probably be the closest we’ll ever get to seeing Ghostbusters III (given that the plot of the game came from a modified script to that movie.)

Thanks for the laughs Harold Ramis, many might remember you for the movies you contributed to. But this gamer will remember you as the man behind the proton pack, and this line from Ghostbusters II

Wise “BaD” Message of the day: Don’t cross the streams. He would’ve wanted it that way.

BaD # 15: A site revisited

Come Hell or high water this blog will be posted today! Internet lag be damned!

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of the “death” of the gaming website that gamers use to call home: 1up.com. Though the date may differ depending who you ask, I consider Feburary 21st, 2013 to be the official announcement of 1up.com’s shutdown given that’s the date of Parish’s news posting on the site. Despite hearing about the site’s closure from Dan Shoe’s twitter feed, I had to wait for the official response from 1up itself before I could fully accept the news. And when the news finally came it hit me, like I’m sure many others, like a ton of bricks.

I’m sure many were expecting this to happen eventually. The site kept being shuffled from owner to owner and the usual traffic and faces we’d come to see on 1up.com started to become fewer and fewer over time. I can’t even mention all the people I noticed no longer visiting the site during its final days. They had either moved on to other sites or had just become too busy to be able to partake in what 1up.com had become. I won’t go into detail of what use to be or how the site was for me when I signed up for it back in 2006. Instead I’m going to mention a few things since things official “wound down” on the site.

Despite most of those on 1up.com departing for different shores, the site itself remains online and somewhat active. Originally I thought that the majority of the activity to be found on the site would be spam blogs or spam threads (which there are to some degree) but what kind of shocked me was that there were still some people still banging around on the site. It appeared that I wasn’t the only one that decided to stay on and active till the plug was officially pulled on 1up.com. And when word came down that the site would stay up indefinitely, there were still a select few that continued to blog or post threads.

I even made a few more friends off the site and still continue to run into a few old friends now and then who have either not found another place to blog or are sticking it out like me in what Parish’s recent blog post calls “not particularly caring that their party is taking place on the rotting corpse of a fallen giant.” Sure some of the blogs now on there might not be on par on what it used to be during its heyday but there are still some on there that might warrant a good read. I’ve even tried my best to help encourage other people on the site to blog and return as need be (as well as suggesting they might try out pixlbit or IGN if things are not active enough for them).

I’ve even got solicited by two individuals about posting my blogs on their websites, though I’m sure their solicitations are not exclusive to just myself.

For all intents and purposes 1up.com is a mere shell of what it once was, indeed it’s a fallen giant that hardly worth visiting given the few people that continue to blog on there. But the funny thing about 1up.com is that despite those that were involved with the site, either as staff or long time user generated content bloggers, have long since gone and place the site into their collective past I still find myself blogging on there just as much as I do now on either pixlbit, IGN and even XPstar. I want to say it’s because of my vow that I would remain on the site till the bitter end, like some lone sentinel standing guard till the end is nigh, but I have to admit it’s much more than that. Call me petty, call me stuck up, hell call me fat headed in thinking myself of some individual of grand self-importance, but the other reason why I continue to be on 1up.com is not just to meet new people, or the hope that it might “bounce back” or to try to motivate the few bloggers left on there (which I must admit I’ve done little to nothing on that.)

No I stay on because I think that people still go there to READ what I post on there. I know this might be wishful thinking, or even glitchiness on the site itself but my page counter still registers reads to my 1up.com page. When I check it on occasion I see roughly 500+ page views a day. Could it possibly be that there are still people off the internet that still visit 1up.com to read the blogs of a a humble and lowly user generated blogger like myself? It just doesn’t seem possible given how everyone considers 1up.com “dead”. Perhaps such is not the case and these are simple “bot” views from some computer program or some kind of coding error from the site itself. It just doesn’t seem correct that someone (or something) would still be reading what I post on there. For as much as I know seeing your page counter over 500+ page views could be the norm for any blogger on 1up.com, past or present. I’m sure other bloggers better than I have received even higher page views.

But my point is simply this: I like to write. I really don’t intend to make it big as some blogger. Or sway hearts and minds what whatever subject I write about. I don’t write to get page views or comments. I don’t write to push an agenda or to prove a point. I don’t write to troll or make fun of any particular subject/theme/situation. I just like to write and I like video games. But if you had to ask me what I like most about writing, I’d have to answer that I like to write about the ideas that come into my head. One of the things I like about writing is the ability one has to be able to share their opinions and ideas from just a few simple sentences about any given subject you feel passionate about.

And at the end of the day if a blog I wrote was actually READ, I’d be happy man knowing that some fragment of my opinion or idea has made itself known to someone. It may not have changed their mind on any given subject or changed their opinion about it, but if it at least made them take a moment out of their busy life to ponder what they’ve read I’d be content.

That is if they could make sense out of what I’m ranting and raving about. My grammar and sentence structures are not the best.

Who’s to say why people would read the “Rants and Ravings” of a Virtual Reality Sociopath when there are more active sites to follow up on. All I know is that if there are people that still read what I write I’ll continue to write there even if the site is as dead as Corduroy.

1up.com maybe dead but I’ll still continue on their till it finally goes dark. Only then will I move on.

BaD #13 & 14: I'm not giving up! It's personal now!

Hey everybody! After some careful thought I’ve decided to continue with this month’s BaD’s. Though I probably won’t be able to keep the theme in spirit, this internet issue I’m having is just getting annoying. Last night it took AN HOUR AND A HALF just to download the unlock code for Soul Caliber II HD on XBLA!!! I am dead serious! I actually fell asleep waiting for Netflix on my Xbox 360 to load, and it never did!

I was lucky enough I was able upload yesterday’s beard picture to my photobucket account but aside from that I didn’t even bother trying to write a blog because I was so disgusted with my internet situation. I hope this doesn’t continue all the way till March. Either way BaD all the way!

Not sure if you can tell much of a difference now with my “epic” beard. It’s starting to feel like it’s not growing anymore. I guess we’ll see if there is a difference by the end of Feburary.

BaD #11 & 12: Too many roadblocks

Hey all. As you can see I’m still functioning or in lock up over my birthdays celebrations (yes I said BIRTHDAYS, I’ll blog on it later) so doing any “Bonus BaD” blogs over the weekend didn’t happen. I was having too much fun that I didn’t even get around to taking beard shots of myself. Sure I did take other pictures of myself during the weekend but those are a bit personal, and could also be used against me in a court of law.

But I did have the usual time I would need to continue this year’s BaD’s but once again technical issues got in the way. My internet got throttled down for a third time which prompted me to call my ISP to find out what was going on. And after going thru the usual computer operator and being put on hold to report a problem AND THEN troubleshooting with a tech on the line I was finally able to learn the following:

Due to unusual polar temperatures (yes they actually used that term) and double digit wind chill temperatures, my area’s network infrastructure is undergoing maintenance/repair/downtime for the rest of the month. They hope to be back up to normal running operation by the beginning of the 1st quarter.

I want to be mad but then again my area is rather remote and I’m lucky to get cable internet to begin with. For most of the winter I’ve had pretty consistent internet with very little downtime. Though our winter hear has not been as bad as it could’ve been, my area has gotten off pretty lucky all things considered. But it still sucks that I will get a throttle down to my internet speed at no warning anytime of the day.

Because of this I’m considering giving up doing BaD’s again. Two years ago it was because of Valentine’s Day. Last year it was my Birthday’s. It just seems I’m not able to catch a break when it comes to BaDs. And I really want to do BaD this year; I haven’t really found it a chore and I’ve really enjoyed reading up on other peoples BaDs and comments, even if I’m behind by 250 messages. And that’s just on pixlbit alone! But having two blogs lumped together doesn’t seem to be in the spirit of “Blog A Day”, even if I did spend the time to write an individual blog before I had to scrap that idea and create a whole knew (and longer) one.

Hers’s another back to back beard pictures. I think you might start to see why I’m not one for growing out my beard. If you look closely you can see that my beard color is not consistent. It’s a patchwork of black, brown, ginger, red, white and silver. Not sure if this is the norm for most beard growers but I’m not sure if this is something one would like to have in their beards. There are other issues at play too but I won’t get into them just yet.

Till next time I’ll try to see about piecing together what happened during my birthdays and see if I can return that traffic cone I found in my bed. Every year….

Wise “BaD” message of the day: Never step onto a cruise ship and say out loud: “This is my favorite kind of ship: Running with blood and seamen.”